


breakwall

by en passant (corinthian)



Series: /brāk/ [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-04 01:08:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2903747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Kaiba Seto, who had more money than God himself, in the end couldn’t become divine. Life and death might be the only power that eluded him. And it was the only thing he had ever wanted.</p><p>--</p><p>Losing a brother and grief.</p>
            </blockquote>





	breakwall

It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. Kaiba Seto, who had more money than God himself, in the end couldn’t become divine. Life and death might be the only power that eluded him. And it was the only thing he had ever wanted.

The first sign that Mokuba was sick, to the public, had nothing to do with the boy. Mokuba continued to appear at Kaiba Corp events, was always seen at his brother’s side, his smile was still as magnetic as ever. But the papers had caught wind of something — Kaiba Corp was funneling massive amounts of funds into cancer research. An astute writer in the opinions column noted that Kaiba Seto loved few things enough to spend that much money — duel monsters, dragons, power and his brother; _it’s doubtful that Mr. Kaiba would even spend that much money on himself, he’s notoriously frugal when it comes to personal expensive outside of his Duel Monsters habit._

The second sign was when Kaiba and his brother stopped traveling, bought a modest house in California and opened a new Kaibaland there. But, as people would note, the UCLA, Stanford and University of California, San Francisco cancer treatment centers were all some of the best in the world.

The third was when Kaiba stopped appearing in public all together.

Kaiba Corp still stood, still ran, still turned a profit. But neither Kaiba brother was seen for almost a year. There were tightly guarded rumors about Mokuba’s illness, about what kind of cancer he may or may not have had and some paparazzi claimed that if one were to skulk around arcades, amusement parks and beautiful scenery — all the places a dying child might want to see — a glimpse of the brothers could be had.

A year and a half after the first report of Kaiba Corp funding cancer research broke, Seto reappeared in the public eye. He was spotted going from his California house back to the office, alone. The red tops said: Kaiba Seto Emerges From Cancer Tragedy, Looking No Worse For The Wear. Conversely, the Domino Times printed in a small article in the back, Seto Kaiba: Dead Man Walking.

They speculated. They called his offices, continued calling them, they tried to reach him for comment. But Kaiba Seto was as untouchable as ever. A newspaper joked, poorly, that now that Kaiba wasn’t burning money on cancer research he could pay for his privacy. Later that week the newspaper was bought and sold, every executive and editor fired.

* * *

“Do you have any comment on the death of Kaiba Mokuba?” The question caught Yuugi off-guard. His mouthed worked a few times — on the tip of his tongue had been another prepared answer about Duel Monsters, or about his retirement from the professional dueling circuit, even one about how he was sure Jounouchi would continue to do well. 

“I’m sorry — ?” He said, instead.

“You were Kaiba Seto’s greatest rival, surely you must have met his younger brother,” the reporter pushed on, “do you have any comment on his death?”

In a way that Yuugi hadn’t felt for years the world seemed to grow much larger than him, the reporters clustered around were taller, more frightening and more predatory. The courage he had found over time didn’t abandon him, but he felt ill.

“How can you be so insensitive?” Yuugi asked.

But the sourness in his stomach wasn’t just from the question. He hadn’t thought much about it. He had heard rumors, saw the articles and thought briefly: That’s too bad, Mokuba was a good kid. It hadn’t seemed real and all of the heartache over losing a friend hadn’t hit him. And now it came with a vengeance, coiled around the base of his spine and boiled up into his mouth like bile.

_How can you be so insensitive?_

* * *

Kaiba returned to Domino with as little fanfare as possible. He did not take his own jet, and while he bought out an entire commercial flight to have the plane to himself, there were as few demands as possible made. Kaiba typically enjoyed comfort, but recently he had simply lost the will to care. About much.

The papers commented on his wardrobe change, most of all. His battle gear was tucked away. No more trench coats, metal gauntlets, boots or obscene belt buckles. Instead Kaiba dressed in smart black suits, red or white silk shirts, typical and expensive dress shoes. The ever-present card locket was the only similarity. No one noted that he had inverted his color scheme, or that black was the color of mourning. The media was more careful about what they printed about him — at least, if it would relate to his brother’s death.

Everything else about Kaiba Seto was fair game.

They enjoyed writing about his business — half of Kaiba Corp’s profits went directly to charity. Half of those to orphanages and groups that supported single parents. Half to continue research on fatal diseases, a large bulk of that dedicated to unusual cancers. The other half of Kaiba Corp’s profit went to overhead charges, employee benefit packages, salaries. Working for Kaiba Corp was the best job, if one met the CEO’s exacting standards.

His looks, too, were popular in the news. Outdated hair that he hadn’t changed once, since ascending to the Kaiba Corp throne. His weight was under scrutiny — did Kaiba work out? was he naturally thin? — the occasional oblique reference to grief slid in, but mostly in the guise of whether or not a girlfriend would be able to ‘take care of him.’

And, of course, his infamous temperament.

* * *

The little cemetery just outside of the Domino City limits was privately owned. The ex-wife of a cousin’s in-law’s family had owned it for years. Every few months Bakura treks out to visit his sister’s grave. He usually brings flowers. Sometimes he brings a birthday present.

He’s surprised to find someone else there. It’s too cold out for most visitors, and even Bakura is chilled in his down jacket and warm muffler — a present from Yuugi last year — so Kaiba must be frigid, in nothing more than his business suit.

The grave is plain and Kaiba didn’t bring any flowers. He didn’t cry either, just stood there. Bakura didn’t stay to watch, he visited with Amane, delivered her birthday gift — it’s a book this year. She probably would have liked it. Forty-five minutes later he can’t feel his fingers and he’s told her everything she missed in the past few months.

When went to leave Kaiba was still there, standing and staring at the grave.

“Excuse me, Kaiba-kun. . .?” He said, gently. He wasn’t sure Kaiba would hear him. In the first few years of his grief and loss, Bakura found it more difficult to pay attention to strangers. Unfamiliar people who didn’t give him any grounding. (And, he knew, from the memories of the spirit that had once shared his body, it wasn’t an uncommon feeling.)

Kaiba turned to look at him, though, with a hollowness that seemed so out of place on his sharp features. “What do you want.” It’s rude, accusatory and said with a snarl. Not a question, just a barrier between them.

“There’s a tea shop, nearby.” Was all Bakura said, ducked his head and left.

The next time Bakura visits Amane he’s not surprised to find Kaiba at the cozy tea shop tucked away at the foot of the cemetery, hands wrapped around a mug of tea, eyes still dry and face still gaunt and broken with sorrow.

* * *

The mansion is converted to a kind of hospital for dying children. A hotel-live-in-hospice situation. Families can stay in luxury while their children waste away from fatal diseases. No one is surprised by the move, or the fact that Kaiba’s home becomes another mystery for the gossip columnists.

What was most surprising, however, was that Kaiba frequently visits the home, dubbed the House of Hope. Once a week he stopped by, often not saying anything but occasionally bringing by the latest tech toy for a child to play with.

* * *

Isono has served Seto since Seto was eleven and old enough — deemed by Gozaburo — to have a man of his own to command. Knowledge about Seto, from business to personal, was his job. When the newspapers speculated about the Kaiba brothers, he knew the truth. He knew that Mokuba was severely ill and that if it could have saved him that Seto would have given his own heart to his little brother.

He knew that nine months, seventeen days, and six hours into treatment Kaiba Mokuba died just after lunch with his brother. That Seto hadn’t been there by his side and that might have been the part that had been the worst for Seto. He had only been gone for five minutes, but that was how long it took for Mokuba’s heart to give out, for him to bleed out into his lungs, for him to die from “complications.”

Seto had returned with a coffee in hand to a flurry of doctors and nurses and his brother’s corpse.

For the next five months Seto did nothing. He didn’t eat and he only slept in the way that the dead did, when his body failed and shut down for a few hours every few days in desperation. That was the worst period of Isono’s employment. He had fought with Seto, tooth and nail and sometimes even with his fists but it wasn’t as though Seto had had the strength to overpower him then.

The business continued on. Seto had been clever enough — was clever enough — to ensure it would continue. Mokuba had wanted it that way, had made his brother promise to keep pursuing his dream of making other children smile. And Seto had vowed, after Death T, to never break another promise to his brother. That was the only reason Seto was still alive.

Even still. Even still . . .

“Seto-sama,” Isono no longer knocked when he entered Seto’s home office. The three bedroom condo was a modern marvel, discreet and perfect for one person, a bodyguard and an office room. Twice a week a chef would come, stock the kitchen with easy to reheat and easy to consume meals. A maid came once a week, though she was also on call just in case. Ever since Seto had pulled himself together enough to find the strength to destroy things his grief tended to manifest in rage. Hatred. The desk was metal because the last wooden desk Seto had taken apart with his bare hands and then sat in the wreckage with bleeding knuckles until Isono had cleaned it, and him, up. “You have a meeting tomorrow morning.”

A reminder for sleep, for the dinner tray still sitting on the edge of the desk.

“How many hours from now?”

“Five.”

Seto grunted, eased himself up out of his desk chair. He looked down at the dinner tray — cold coffee, half of a sandwich, an apple — and then passed it by.

“Take tomorrow off, Isono.”

“You know I can’t do that, sir.”

* * *

Two years after Mokuba died, Kaiba had settled into a routine. Autopilot shuffled him from home and to the office and then on Tuesdays to Kaibaland and Thursdays to the House of Hope. It was late, two days before Christmas, when he entered the House of Hope’s foyer to find Mutou Yuugi and Bakura Ryou toeing off their shoes, each argued with large paper bags filled with. . . things.

“Mutou. . . and your friend.” Kaiba ground out.

Bakura and Yuugi exchanged a look — half-understanding, half-bemused. “Bakura Ryou.”

“I know who you are. What are you doing?”

“Ah — well, I heard that this place always takes donations. . .” Yuugi started.

“Presents for the children have already been adequately gathered,” Kaiba slowly responded. He had lost his infamously fast and direct way of shooting down people, verbally. Instead his voice had a ponderous, heavy tone to it, as if he didn’t wish to be speaking at all.

“. . . for the parents, Kaiba-kun.” Bakura interrupted in that gentle way of his. “Holidays are hard on family too.”

Kaiba clenched his fist and found a place on the wall to stare at.

“Do what you want, just don’t bother anyone.” He finally said.

Yuugi brushed a hand against Kaiba’s shoulder as he passed him and Bakura doubled the gesture. “Merry Christmas, Kaiba-kun.”

Kaiba stayed in the foyer a while longer. His arm had started to shake and something strange was caught in his throat. Before he knew it he could taste salt and realized that he had started to cry.


End file.
